Cybersickness

Do you ever get a feeling of lightheadedness or nausea like motion sickness while watching reels on social media? You're not alone and may be experiencing cyber sickness.

It has to do with your senses getting a feel for where you are in the world. When your senses are getting contradictory information to the brain it results in disorientation and physical symptoms. Fast and slow motion, shaky handheld video, walking while recording video are some of the biggest triggers.

With reels becoming more popular, the flooding of amateur video and special effects the phenomenon Cybersickness is increasing amongst viewers. Instagram and other social media apps are not quality video apps, and can have jerky playback speeds as they show on your device, especially if you have poor internet coverage. Even real time video with download lagging playback can also trigger the sickness.

While using special effects from time to time may make your content interesting and stand out, there is a real negative side effect to your viewer if using too much. If you are watching good quality content such a documentary or news report, you will see slow motion is only used to enhance a mood or explain a scene for the briefest time, then it’s back to real time play back. You probably haven’t even registered that the content has slowed down its that seamless.

So… if your creating content on your social media account, my advice is:
* Think about where you plan to upload video content and who is viewing it. Record and edit accordingly.
* Use video reels with motion effects sparingly and don’t use the same effect each time.
* If you want to post more reels try and use more real time playback, and explore photo slide-shows.
* Post more static photos.